Most drugs for treating heart muscle disease are antagonists or inhibitors, such as beta-adrenergic blockers, or angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, or aldosterone or angiotensin receptor blockers. The basic rationale for using these antagonists is to block cellular pathways that are toxic or harmful to the cell. These drugs may be effective in conditions such as heart failure, but their efficacy is limited. At the present time, no drugs are commonly used, which take the approach of activating cellular pathways that are beneficial or helpful to the cell. Alpha-1-adrenergic receptor agonists in current clinical use are designed to stimulate smooth muscle contraction, for example to treat hypotension or urinary incontinence, and are used in amounts that result in smooth muscle contraction. Such smooth muscle contraction may not be beneficial for patients with many heart or brain related diseases. The present invention provides solutions to these and other problems in the art.